WARNING: SPOILERS. Don't read if you don't want to know.
2nd WARNING: I'm a fan of the book.
For anyone who has read City of Bones
there are certain expectations to be met for a successful film adaptation. As I watched the movie, I was looking for key
points throughout the story. I didn’t
care about certain things that really didn’t matter to the overall effect of
the book translation, like the fact that Valentine had dark hair instead of
white blonde. What I was looking for was
the heart of the story, the intricacies of the relationships that made a
fantastic book.
And I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed. Although I have
read some disparaging reviews, I don’t necessarily agree. Eh.
Maybe I’m too much a fan of the book.
Now, translating a book into a film isn’t easy, especially when
trying to keep the core of what the story is about. Certain things do need to be sacrificed. A book can take us on a journey for a long
period of time and by the end we feel like we went on this rollercoaster along
with the characters. In a film, everything
needs to be condensed, concise, and articulated with a time frame. So that’s very hard to do with dealing with
the elaborate world of The Mortal Instruments.
Clary Fray is an ordinary girl, or so she thinks, until she
starts writing an odd symbol everywhere.
Suddenly, she’s not so simple and the world isn’t quite what it
seems. She stumbles into the world of
the Shadow Hunters, half angel and half human fighters who rid the world of
demons. In fact, Clary is one herself,
only her mother hid her from this world.
And for good reason. Her father,
Valentine, is a sadistic good guy turned bad when he plans to kill everything
but the Shadow Hunters. He’s looking for
The Mortal Cup, the cup that the angel Raziel poured his blood into to give to
the band of humans wanting to fight demons.
With this Mortal Cup, Valentine can do pretty much anything.
The book is amazing and the movie was pretty good. Sure, there was exposition, you just can’t
get awa And there wasn’t enough Magnus Bane, but I
was surprised that the film balanced each character’s story.
y from that when you have this epic background story.
I was also surprised (but glad) they didn’t gloss over
certain subjects that could be taboo in a YA film. Like Alec’s love for Jace and Mangus’s
attraction to Alec. I half expected the
producers to gloss over those two situations but they didn’t. Now, the only part I was slightly
disappointed in, but I understand why they did it, was Hodge blatantly telling
the audience about the big twist of Valentine’s kids. As readers, we didn’t find out until book 3
but I know parents will be taking their kids to see this and so it was probably
the big wig’s way of making sure there wasn’t a big to-do.
Otherwise, I liked the liberties the writers and the
director took with the ending of the book.
Visually, it was stunning. I
always like a good sword fight. And
while I was at first disappointed with who they chose to play Jace (I only had
Twilight to base him off...see photo), in the end I was happy that he did some beefing up
to play the
I would recommend anyone to see this film. While knowing the world of The Mortal
Instruments would help endear the movie, it’s not necessary. I really hope they plan on making the other
two films City of Ashes & City of Glass because at the end of City of Glass
there is a scene by a lake that would be AMAZING to see acted out. But the producers were wise enough to end CoB
in a way that may or may not be followed. I guess time will tell.
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